


do i chase the night (or does the night chase me)

by perfectlyrose



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 01:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12179916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlyrose/pseuds/perfectlyrose
Summary: Not long after making it back from Scarif, Cassian is surprised by a knock on his door in the middle of the night.





	do i chase the night (or does the night chase me)

Cassian jolted awake, breath caught in his chest, screams locked up as a lump in throat. He’d hoped when he collapsed into bed earlier that evening that the nightmares would be banished for a night due to sheer exhaustion.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed with a grimace and started working on regulating his breathing, on pushing the nightmare images out of his head. A shuddering breath escaped him and Cassian glanced back at his pillow longingly, knowing it was probably too much to ask to get some more sleep tonight.

He was just reaching for a datapad to catch up on reviewing some mission reports when there was a soft knock on his door.

Cassian frowned and struggled to his feet, at a loss as to who would be at his door at this time of night. When the door snicked open he was greeted with the sight of a small person with a blanket around their shoulders starting to walk away.

He blinked, certain he was imagining things. “Jyn?”

She turned, green eyes dark in the low light. “You’re awake.”

“You’re the one who knocked.”

Jyn shrugged and looked down at the floor.

This was a different version of Jyn than he was used to seeing. By the light of day she was a sight to behold, all barely contained energy and sharp edges but it seemed the middle of the night dulled that to a degree, stripped back a layer or two until she seemed as vulnerable as the rest of them.

“Did you want to come in?” he offered.

She looked back up, nodded. They both limped as they entered his small quarters, injuries from Scarif only starting to heal. Cassian sat down on the edge of the bed, watching as Jyn took in the room with quick glances, gaze catching on the doors and hiding places before settling back on him.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she blurted out. Her fingers clutched at the frayed edge of her blanket.

He raised an eyebrow. “You knocked on my door in the middle of the night but you didn’t mean to wake me up?”

She lifted her chin, argument written in the angle. “I knocked softly.”

Cassian’s lips twitched upwards before he could help it. “I wasn’t sleeping anyways,” he admitted.

Jyn took a step towards him, something that he thought might be concern on her face but it was wiped away by a grimace as she stumbled. Cassian put out a hand to steady her but she caught herself before he could do anything.

“You should sit.”

Jyn hesitated before settling onto the bed a few inches away from him.

“How’s your leg?” she asked.

“How’s your hip?”

The smile she gave him was sharp. Neither of them were in good shape.

“So,” Cassian started, “if you weren’t trying to wake me up, why did you knock on my door?”

Jyn shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. Guess I was seeing if you were awake too.”

Silence fell over the room, heavy but not uncomfortable.

“Have you slept much since…” he trailed off with a vague hand gesture.

“No. You?”

He shook his head.

Jyn pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on them. Cassian noted that she was in stocking feet, apparently not having bothered to put on her boots to walk down the corridor.

“What were you doing if you weren’t sleeping?”

“Catching up on reading reports.”

“So, trying to put yourself back to sleep,” she retorted. “I never imagined there would be so much paperwork involved with becoming an official rebel.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen the half of it,” he promised.

“Well, you can get back to it, if you want. I don’t mind.” The last part of her sentence was interrupted by a yawn.

“You’re welcome to try and catch some sleep here,” he offered. “I don’t mind.”

Jyn stared at him for a moment, trying to gauge how serious he was. Apparently she found whatever she was looking for because she scooted back on the bed and curled up with her back to the wall, commandeering his pillow as she went.

Cassian couldn’t hide his smile at how tiny she looked, curled into a ball, wrapped in her blanket and in the corner of his bed. He was going to hoard this memory for future nights when he couldn’t sleep.

“If you’re going to stare instead of working, you might as well try to sleep, too,” Jyn said, startling him.

“Maybe I will.”

Cassian shifted to lean against the wall, stretching his legs out next to Jyn and settling his datapad on his lap.

“That doesn’t look like sleeping.”

He looked down and found her looking at him with those sharp, green eyes. There was something soft behind them, a vulnerability that he only saw rarely.

It had him setting his datapad down and sliding down the bed until he was on his side, facing Jyn. “Better?”

“Mmm, it’ll do,” she said. She didn’t bother to offer him his pillow back, instead settling into it more firmly and closing her eyes. 

Cassian balled up his blanket and put it under his head. His heartrate was rising again but this time it had nothing to do with potential nightmares and everything to do with the woman just a handspan away in his small bunk.

He might not have completely thought this through.

He closed his eyes and sought sleep once more, certain he wouldn’t be able to find it when he was so focused on the heat radiating off of Jyn and how one movement would bring them into contact.

(And he wanted that, he wanted it more than he thought possible. He had thought he was going to die in her arms and he had been content with that, almost happy. Now he just wanted to hold her in the deceptive, fragile peace that only existed in the middle of the night and remind himself that they were both impossibly alive.)

Cassian was asleep within minutes. 

When he woke, it was a gradual process, a slow return to consciousness that was not initiated by a nightmare plaguing him. Before thinking about it, he reached over to the other side of the bed, vague memory telling him that Jyn should be there, that she was the reason for these stolen moments of peace.

The other side of the bed was cold and devoid of the oft-prickly rebel. 

He sat up, suddenly worried that he had imagined the whole thing. But his pillow was still on the other side of the bed and the blanket that was covering him was not his.

Cassian allowed himself a smile as he ran a hand over the blanket, over his proof that she’d been here. It was proof and maybe a promise that she would return, if only to retrieve her property.

A ghost of a promise was all he needed to let hope start blooming in his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> me: shows up many months late but with fic and an obsession with this ship
> 
> This is my first time writing these two so, apologies for any inconsistencies or the like.


End file.
